Mitsubishi Corp. (8058), Japan's largest trading company, and Kyushu Electric Power Co. got a $200 million loan from a group of banks led by Japan Bank for International Cooperation to build a natural gas-fired power plant in Mexico.

Building work will begin tomorrow on the 495-megawatt power plant in Tuxpan, 250 kilometers (155.4 miles) northeast of Mexico City, said Daishin Kuramoto, a spokesman for Fukuoka, Japan-based Kyushu Electric, the country's fifth-largest power producer.

Mitsubishi and Kyushu Electric will invest $100 million in the $300-million project. The other lenders are the Bank of Tokyo- Mitsubishi Ltd., Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd., and the Tokyo branch of U.K.-based Standard Chartered Plc (STAN), Kuramoto said.

Mitsubishi will hold a 70 percent stake in Electricidad Sol de Tuxpan, the joint-venture company that will own the plant. Kyushu Electric will own the rest. The companies have run a separate 495-megawatt power station at an adjacent site since December 2001.

The new power plant will sell electricity to government-run Comision Federal de Electricidad of Mexico, which supplies about 21.6 million customers, for a 25-year period. Commercial operations are scheduled to start in September 2006.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (7011), Japan's largest heavy machinery maker, will build the power plant and provide power- generating equipment. U.S.-based North American Energy Services, a subsidiary of Dynegy Inc., signed a contract to run and maintain the power plant.

To contact the reporter on this story: Meggan Richard in Tokyo at mrichard3@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Langan at plangan@bloomberg.net.